Caspian Sea - Preventing an Ecological Disaster

LancerGT

Russian Official Warns Of Ecological Disaster On Caspian


MOSCOW (AP)--A Russian environmental official warned Monday of potential ecological disaster in the Caspian Sea if aging oil tankers are used to transport crude from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan for pumping through a pipeline that bypasses Russia.

Oleg Mitvol, deputy chief of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources, told reporters that small-capacity, single-hulled tankers commonly in use on the sea were more likely to leak or spill crude oil.

Western countries have pushed Kazakhstan to increase its oil exports via the U.S.-backed pipeline that runs from Azerbaijan via Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Mitvol said increased shipments in the older ships would put the sea at greater risk.

"Oil deliveries by single-hull tankers pose a real threat to this unique ecological region," he said at a news conference. "Why should they worry about single-hulled oil tankers on, say, the Mediterranean Sea, but not on the Caspian Sea? Why is the Caspian not worthy of such protection?"

Kazakhstan, which possesses the largest oil deposits in the Caspian Sea, currently exports most of its oil via Russia, but has been seeking to establish alternative routes. Last month, it signed up to pump its oil through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

Talks to build an extension of the pipeline under the Caspian, however, are in their infancy, and in the meantime, Kazakhstan's tiny fleet of aging Soviet-era tankers is expected to increase crude shipments to Azerbaijani oil terminals.

Russia strongly opposed the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and instead pressed for Caspian oil to continue going through its network of pipelines to the Black Sea.

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LancerGT

Russian Official Warns Of Ecological Disaster On Caspian



MOSCOW (AP)--A Russian environmental official warned Monday of potential ecological disaster in the Caspian Sea if aging oil tankers are used to transport crude from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan for pumping through a pipeline that bypasses Russia.

Oleg Mitvol,


Period. "If your tankers carry oil bypassing Russia, it's a potential disaster". Lots of
single-hull tankers carry oil in russian inland waterways and he couldn't care less.

LancerGT

Russian Official Warns Of Ecological Disaster On Caspian


Oh, how nice of them... It's great that country finally started to care about environment... So far they seemed not to care... Instead, they were masters of environment destruction.. Baltic is facing eco-disaster when drums and bombs with chemical warfare, sunk by Russians soon after the second World war, finally rust out in their shells and release yperite.. Baltic is also by far most polluted currently, on day to day basis, by waste from Russian rivers, not Swedish, Polish or German... That were Russians who dried out the Aral Sea by mad-man attempt to change the direction of flow of rivers... That are Russian nuclear submarines, that are laid up and left to rust until they disintegrate and release radioactive leaks from their reactors... And that country official dares to warn of possble enviro-disaster to be caused by someone else?...